what is "your support matters"?
In today’s society, LGBTQA+ people still face a variety of difficulties that others may not have to confront. Many of these stem from the lack of acceptance that many have towards them, and their inability to be themselves both to others, but also to themselves. Our society doesn’t stress how important it is for young children to be educated about what being LGBTQA+ means, and thus many many don't know how to support LGBTQA+ people, and more importantly, might not always know how to accept themselves if they are LGBTQA+
“Your Support Matters” focuses on what people who are not LGBTQA+ can do to directly support people they know, but also on wider scale create a much more accepting environment for everyone to express and be themselves no matter what. This campaign focuses on LGBTQA+ rights not only as a problem for those who are LGBTQA+, but as a societal problem that helps to breed intolerance and hate towards difference by lack of education on the fact that members of the LGBTQA+ community are not “different”. It places the power for anyone, no matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity, to help to effect change.
What is it we hope to accomplish?
1. Educating people that, despite the massive amount of progress made in recent years in regards to the LGBTQA+ rights, there is still a lot more work to do to create a society that accepts that progress.
2. Helping people to understand that education of young children is key to effect change. They are the most susceptible to new ideas and if they are taught that LGBTQA+ people are not different, will most likely carry that belief their entire life.
3. As a second part of the education of young children, making sure they are allowed to express themselves in any way they see fit, making them more comfortable if they come to find they are a member of the LGBTQA+ community.
4. Helping friends and family understand how to respond and support their friends/family who identifies as LGBTQA+, both in the coming out process but also in life as they continue to face discrimination.
5. Assisting in the creation of an environment where sexual orientation or gender identity does not impede anyone from living their life to the absolute fullest.
Who is it we are trying to reach?
The target of this campaign are younger people, 18 – 35, as we are trying to really target the new generation and new parents with our ideas. Effecting change as the new generation starts to come in.
previous approaches
“It Gets Better” Campaign
The “It Gets Better” Campaign was founded in September of 2010 in response to several suicides of LGBTQA+ teenagers who felt too unhappy with the discrimination against them to continue on in life. Dan Savage founded the campaign in hopes to reach out to anyone else who may have felt the way that these teenagers did and inform them simply “It Gets Better.” Dan Savage, as a gay man, felt responsible to share the stories of LGBTQA+ adults, many of whom had similar life experience to the teenagers, whose lives got better as they grew up.
This campaign focused on YouTube for videos of people sharing their experiences, and the channel reached the video limit for YouTube in the next week, due in no small part to the participation of high profile gay celebrities and the involvement on non-gay allies who were involved in the fight for gay rights, such as the president at the time, Barack Obama. Many of the videos were submissions by LGBTQA+ men and women of all colors, ages, and religions. It demonstrated that the medium of videos made by your audience could actually be very successful. They have won several awards, and published a book of essays about the topic, as well as inspiring several organizations internationally to form with the same premise. Dan Savage described YouTube as a means to talk to a wide variety of people without needing to get an invitation to speak there. He has showed time and time again this is the case.
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is arguably one of the best known known LGBTQA+ campaigns currently active, and has been for quite some time. This campaign is quite old, dating back to 1980, but has adapted as new media has become available to them. They have lobbied and campaigned for several different things in the past 37 years, but is perhaps best known for their campaign in 2013 when they changed their infamous blue and yellow “equality flag” to red and pink in support of the supreme court case regarding marriage equality.
According to AdWeek, when the HRC asked it’s supporters to change their Facebook profile pictures to the new sign, Facebook saw a 120% increase in profile picture changes over the course of the following week. This symbol was reworked by famous people and organizations to show their support of same-sex marriage as well. It became a way of looking at what was, and still is, one of the main forms of social media and instantly seeing that someone supported the cause. Moreover, it broadcast a message to LGBTQA+ people that they had support. It was a visible campaign that most definitely had a part in the Supreme Court Deciding in favor of same-sex marriage across all 50 states.
“No H8” Campaign
The No H8 campaign was formed in 2009 as more a visual campaign that focused on silent protest of Proposition 8 in California. However, the campaign quickly spread as a global phenomenon, with many celebrities and politicians supporting the campaign, and attending it’s events.
The campaign asked its participants to wear duct tape with the words: No H8 painted on their cheek. This was supposed to symbolize their voices being silenced by Proposition 8, as well as other similar legislation over the world, and the “H8” was a direct reference to Proposition 8 in California. It’s incredibly visual elements have become incredibly recognizable on social media symbolizing the success of the campaign.
How will this be accomplished?
This campaign will run for the entirety of the month of June. The reason June is chosen is due to the fact that this is the highest concentration of Pride Parade events around the world, and many will be thinking about LGBTQA+ issues at this time and will be more likely to be interested in our media and contribute to our media. Below is a list of the social media platforms we plan to use and how they will be utilized to their fullest.
Facebook/Twitter
Facebook and Twitter will act as home bases for the project. There will be daily updates on these sites as well as outreach via the use of the hashtags: #YourSupportMatters and #LetMeBeMe. We will also be posting updates in any outreach we’ve done to help encourage people to support us by demonstrating effective change, sharing news articles about what’s happening in the LGBTQA+ community and how others are supporting the same efforts as us, and sharing media from our other campaigns as this is a group effort by all participating, not a competition. Posts will usually be somewhere around one to two times a day, shooting for 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. for the postings. At 11 many are just getting to work on the West Coast, and logging onto computers, where many will do a quick run through of social media, other’s on the East Coast are hitting the mid-day slump where they will check their phones. At 8, many on the East Coast are home and have had dinner with their families, and are beginning to relax, which for many around means checking social media. On the West Coast, they are just getting out of work, where they might do a quick run through of their phone on the way down to their car and mull over the post mentally on their drive home.
Sample Tweets are as follows:
- Remember to not be a bystander to homophobia, it might save someone's life. #YourSupportMatters
- Education is key to stopping discrimination, talk to your children as they enter their pre-teens about LGBTQA+ rights! #YourSupportMatters
- Sexual orientation or gender identity don't determine someone's worth. Let everyone live their lives! #LetMeBeMe
Sample Facebook posts are as follows:
- Children are the next generation of the world, and they will live big parts of their lives with the beliefs that are implemented into them by you, their parents and family. It’s important to educate them about LGBTQA+ rights, and show them that there truly is no difference between them and anyone else. This will not only make them feel comfortable being themselves around you if they turn out to be LGBTQA+, but will make them a more accepting person. #YourSupportMatters
- Hundreds of suicides around the world are due to LGBTQA+ teenagers and young adults feeling that they are so unable to be themselves, they’d rather not be here. In many of these cases they lacked support groups and supportive families that could’ve made the difference between life and death. Make sure you friends and family know they can be themselves around you. #YourSupportMatters #LetMeBeMe
Also we will utilize Facebook and Twitter profile pictures, with the following border to be added to show your support to this organization and to the many LGBTQA+ people around the world as a beacon of hope.
YouTube
YouTube will feature prominently as part of this campaign, showing videos of LGBTQA+ people, their families and their friends talking about how support groups helped shape their coming out experience, and how it made a difference in their life in the long-run. These videos will be submitted by anyone who wants to share their story, both young and old, to provide LGBTQA+ people with hope about coming out and gaining support, but also giving those who want to support them some level of a guide as to what worked for the millions who have already come out around the world, and what can work to help support their families and friends. Moreover, showing them that their support can truly make a difference in someone else’s life. All videos will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.
Snapchat
Snapchat is important to reach a younger generation, and help them understand how to be supportive of friends. We will be posting on Snapchat images of people who lacked support and unfortunately took their own lives due to a lack of acceptance, showing young adults and teenagers that people their age are not being supported and need to be. Also, snippets of YouTube videos will be posted on here, allowing users to swipe up to then go and check out the entire video on their mobile phone. These outreaches will happen all throughout the day, as Snapchat is used constantly by the younger generation, and they will be clicking through all throughout the day. The visuals of being able to show the faces of those who have passed due to the societal problem of discrimination will hopefully hit harder than simply talking about it. It will also increase traffic to videos.
THE COMPETITION
A big part of this campaign focuses on the notion of having people submit their stories to be shared via YouTube, to gain traction from as many real people and stories as humanly possible. To help promote this throughout the entire month, there will be a competition that will start June 5, to give the campaign time to become publicized, and end on the last day of June. And the details of it are as follows:
1. Film a video of you as an LGBTQA+ person or a supporter of a friend or family who is LGBTQA+ talking about how your support group and/or your support of others helped you/them to feel comfortable with themselves and the whole process. Make sure it focuses on the importance of support.
2. Please make sure your video is at least four minutes long to have a good amount of material in it.
3. Submit it to the website: www.yoursupportmatters.com
4. When you see your video come onto our YouTube page, please share it to your Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag: #WhySupportMatters
5. We will select two winners to bring them and their families to an all expense paid trip to Palm Springs, CA.
There are many LGBT organizations located in Palm Springs, CA, we will contact many of them to try to arrange the trip.
DELIVERABLES
1. Individuals who don’t identify with the LGBTQA+ community will have a better understanding of what LGBTQA+ members undergo in their lives.
2. LGBTQA+ youth will gain more active support from their friends and family, who will understand the importance and how to best approach assisting them.
3. There will be a database of videos on YouTube for LGBTQA+ individuals and their friends and family to find even after the campaign to help them with the process.
4. The next generation will become less discriminatory than the current.
5. There will be less people who feel compelled to stay in the closet, instead of fully expressing themselves, due to the fact that there will be discrimination.
In conclusion
This campaign fills a void in the LGBTQA+ campaigning that is currently available. It focuses mainly on the education of non-LGBTQA+ people, rather than focusing on the LGBTQA+ community itself. It will help to prevent discrimination through lack of education about what it means to be LGBTQA+. It will do this through three main ways, as listed above.
1. Engagement of people through posting on Facebook and Twitter using our hashtags, using the two as home bases for the entire operation.
2. Engaging people visually through the use of YouTube Videos and Snapchat, forcing them to see and hear people's stories, and see those who's lives have been lost due to discrimination.
3. A competition to engage as many people as humanly possible to watch our videos, share our videos to their friends, and use a hashtag designated simply for this.
Through these means the campaign will deliver on all objectives that we set out to complete, and be a success.
Sources:
NoH8 Campaign for images and information
HRC Campaign for images and information
It Gets Better Campaign for images and information
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